Eddie the FE

[Hewart]

I first came across this FE a month or so ago and was planning to post it in the "For Sale" section... It was on the hoist at the local Ultra Tune and the manager was the owner.



When I first asked him about it, he wanted to know if I wanted to buy it... no room, no money, no time etc, so no was my answer! He had had it stored for the past 6 years and didn't know whether to sell it as is or fix it and sell it.

He was happy to show it to me and said come back when it's off the hoist for a closer look.

I was having a flat tyre fixed nearby a few weeks later and had another look... but the owner wasn't there.....









Another couple of weeks later I was back having 2 more tyres done (I'm not having a good run lately ) and learned that the owner had alledgedly embeseld some money and was in jail, and Eddie had a new owner already - a nearby mechanic! I talked to him and got the numbers for Ken and anyone else who's interested. The interior is in pretty good nic also. I don't think the motor is the original, it has a few stickers on it warning about running in a "new" motor, and I think it has a "B" prefix.







No: FE-225-14961-A
Trim No: 238-467
Paint No: 253-7447
RPO: 253-7478

Engine number I think was B221543 and I couldn't see the chassis number unfortunatley...

I believe the new owner is planning on fixing him up again, possibly not original as he is a high performance mechanic..... but we'll see!

Cheers
Les...

[graham_fuller]

Thanks for sharing Les. Another 2 tone blue.
Cheers,
Graham

[tommo65]

I hope the new owner does do something positive with "Eddie" wether a restoration or Hot Rod.

Cheers Tommo

[Johns]

Strewth They're more common than grey ones, Sydney and Melbourne must have bought a job lot of Elk Blue.

Scene switches to early August 1956 in a country Holden showroom somewhere. A potential buyer admires a new Teal over Elk Blue FE  - Salesman begins his pitch - "Yes Sir, she's a beauty isn't she, certainly we can sell you a brand new FE! Yes, we have a number of colour combinations, would you like a single tone Elk Blue or would you prefer a Teal Blue top?

Other colours? Well, Elk Blue is frightfully popular in this manor Sir (apologies to Monty Python) Common? Well I don't know about that Sir, Have you looked at the new range of Nasco accessories to personalise your new blue FE? A grey one? Er well, lets see...yes.. that might be possible, but it will need to by Special order sir. When? Oh well ..ummm..how about early 1957 sir?"

Out of curiosity, has anyone ever seen an Elk over Teal Blue FE? now that would be a rarity.

Oh, and I'll publish photos of my new Teal over Elk FE shortly

Feeling blue
John

[Geoff_K]

John,
Factory did not release Elk Blue over Teal Blue FE, so I don't think you will see one soon!  Elk blue is only seen as:-
156 Elk Blue, &
204 Teal Blue over Elk Blue,
are very unique colour sets, all be it very popular on the sales floor.
There were 55 colour/trim combinations for FE in all.
Elk Blue appears never to have been released over any other colour.
Geoff_K
ps I have ended up with 4 cars in these colours

[mcl1959]

Oddly enough the majority of cars in both Elk blue single colour and Teal over Elk are 1956 cars. Of the 35 cars I have recorded in my data base, more than half are 1956 cars with a few more cars in mid 1957 and then a late run of cars at the end of the FE in 1958.
The original release of 2 tone blue FE was Teal over Elk and lots of examples exist - the pictured car is a 1956 model. Note that the rear window rubber reveals the early trim missing.
The GMH sales bulletin 4-1-1957 advises that a new range of colours will be available from that date and single colour specials are Marlin Blue and 2 tone specials are Bluebird Blue over Haze Blue. So from early 1957 the colour dissapears until the 30th of June when my next sales bulletin shows that Elk and Teal are reintroduced and Haze/Bluebird and Marlin are dropped.
Unfortunately I dont have all the sales bulletins and details are a little sketchy, but the patterns are definately there in the database.
Regards  Ken

[mcl1959]

In fact the Elk blue single tone cars are the most indicative of all.
I have 8 cars between body number 1075 and 9904 all made in Adelaide in 1956
then 2 with body numbers 16475 and 17624 made in Sydney
then another 4 with body numbers 23292 23656 23805 and 23862 all made in Adelaide
The 2 Sydney cars line up date wise with the 4 Adelaide cars placing the run of Elk blue single colour cars in mid to late 1957 over a period of only a few weeks.  The absence of an even spread of numbers can only be explained by very limited runs of production of this colour.
Ken

[Johns]

Thanks Ken.

My impression has been that Elk Blue or Teal over Elk formed the bulk of early production cars (my uncle had a single tone Elk Blue 56), at least in Sydney.

Is correct that there are few early Sydney/ Melbourne assembled cars in other colours?

This doesn't seem to be the case for Brisbane as the very early car recently recorded from there was two tone green , which doesn't seem to appear in early Melbourne and Sydney cars.

Is this a reasonable conclusion?

Cheers
John

[mcl1959]

No not really correct, the folowing is the result of a search of 1956 chassis cars - it is not all the 1956 cars in my database, but a quick way to get a search result.
8 cars Teal Blue over Elk Blue
7 cars Elk Blue
7 cars Anvil Grey over Cabot Grey
4 cars Huron Green over Ocean Mist Green
4 cars Teal Blue over Breton Blue
3 cars Sky Grey over Etna Maroon
2 cars Ocean Mist Green
2 cars Lockhart Cream
2 cars Breton Blue over Cabot Grey
single cars with the colours of Black, Breton Blue, Sky Grey, Biscay Green over Shannon Green, Granite Grey over Castle Grey, Castle Grey over Etna Maroon and Gypsy Red over Cabot Grey.
All plants made the entire range of early cars as seen on the usual posters
The Womens Weekly are the best as they are in colour.
The rarest colours in these posters are the Russet Brown over Cuban Beige ones. Very few of these cars seem to have been sold.
Ken

[Geoff_K]

Kens list is very extensive and amazing in detail.
I have at least 4 more Elk Blue 1956 Sydney built car details to bring Kens number to 11.
Geoff_K

[Johns]

Ken,

Thanks for the info, very interesting.

Some of those colours look to be late FJ, is this correct? if so these must be very early cars?

Based on plant and assembly dates, would your data would support the proposition that there were a preponderance of early - say first 2 months or so- of production cars out of Sydney and Melbourne in Elk or Teal over Elk?

regards
John

[RET]

According to my data, the 1956 FE colours (in order of introduction) were:

Anvil Grey
Huron Green
Teal Blue
Elk Blue
Ocean Mist Green
Desert Tan
Cascade White
Lockhart Cream
Levant Green
Gypsy Red
Corsair Tan
Sky Grey
Ascot Grey
Biscay Green
Castle Grey
Russett Brown
Milford Green
Leon Green
Granite Grey
Royal Marine
Cuban Beige

Of course, not all of those were necessarily used on FEs, some may have been FJ commercial only (or even Vauxhall or Chev): I think Milford Green is one of these.  Additionally, there are some colours introduced earlier that ran on to FE, such as Hi Gloss Black, Breton Blue etc.

Ken,

I know you disagreed with John's hypothesis, but the figures you provide there show about 33% (15/46) of all 1956 cars being Elk or Teal/Elk. That's 1/8th of the colour combinations accounting for 1/3rd of the cars. It does seem top-heavy with blue, and that's before inclusion of Geoff's blue FEs.

1 pic = 1k words, so....



cheers
RET

[HAD 708]

Great Pie Chart RET but now all us FC Lovers would like one for 1958/59 colors just in your spare time!!!! Though seriously it would be great to have something similar for all the colors in sedans in the FE FC range. Just a thought?!
Brett

[mcl1959]

Its an interesting theory - and I'm not sure that I have enough data to support an argument either way even though what I have found certainly looks convincing for your case.

Firstly Melbourne production didn't begin until 1957 so there are no 1956 Melbourne cars.
I should have sorted Sydney production from Adelaide production to make the picture clearer
Whilst I have a fair bit of data of early Adelaide cars since all 1956 Melbourne production came from Adelaide built bodies, I dont have a lot of data for Sydney early cars.
Here is my Sydney list

body number   290  code 204  Teal over Elk
1038  243  Gypsy over Cabot
1701  156  Elk
2697  156  Elk
3709  204  Teal over Elk
All these cars are Sydney body, Sydney chassis cars - but I have another one
body 5106 A with 1619 S chassis which is Ocean Mist Green - this is very early Sydney production before body number 290  I think but not 100 % sure because the chassis number on body number 290 is wrong. Ret, check Stacey Andreadis details from your database years ago.

Very high incidence of Elk and Teal over Elk cars with the one odd car thrown in.  However this is a sample of only 6 cars in the 1st 4000.  I'm not sure that any real conclusion can be drawn from this.
Geoff, do you have any other cars below 4000?

Adelaide production
body number   163  code  202  Anvil over Cabot
446  190  Lockhart Cream
722  214  Breton over Cabot
1075  156  Elk
1351  202  Anvil over Cabot
1437  250  Sky over Etna
1591  202  Anvil over Cabot
1817  4  Black
2051  204  Teal over Elk
2208  471  Ocean Mist over Huron
2588  204  Teal over Elk
2888  158  Sky
2987  156  Elk
I wont list the next 50 or so cars I have between 3000 and 11000 which are the balance of the 1956 production except to say there are 3 more Elk Blues, 6 more Teal over Elk and 7 more Anvil over Cabot

Statistically even 60 cars out of 11000 is not may but I think a clearer picture can be obtained than from the Sydney production numbers.

This list shows Anvil over Cabot as the most popular colour scheme in Adelaide with Teal over Elk coming in second place.  No question that Teal over Elk and single colour Elk Blue were very popular colours but not as popular as Anvil over Cabot in Adelaide.

Ken

[TTV6FC]

You guys sure know your stuff,very informative.Great work.Cheers,Jamie

[Geoff_K]

Ken,
Stacey Andreadis details maybe right @
body ID FE-225-290-S, chassis 6-1723-S, Teal Blue over Elk Blue
because Russell Towers car is @
body ID FE-217-4-S, chassis 6-4905-S, Sky Grey
others low/under 4000 numbers are
body FE-217-257-S, chassis 6-4097-S, Sky Grey
body FE-217-301-S, chassis 6-4835-S, Desert Tan
body FE-217-509-S, chassis 6-8271-S, Sky Grey
body FE-225-1933-S, chassis 6-4419-S, Sky Grey
body FE-225-2053-S, chassis 6-5352-S, Elk Blue
body FE-225-3709-S, chassis 6-6578-S, Teal Blue over Elk Blue
body FE-225-4136-S, chassis 6-6806-S, Elk Blue
(most of these cars have the 'S' displaced at the beginning of body ID)
Russell's car may have been a test/training car because it has ended up looking like a Special.
My grandfather's car (last seen near Albury in 2006) was either Sky Grey or Ascot Grey and it would be in the list (I wonder who has it now, anyone know by chance someone in the process of restoring it?)
Cheers, Geoff_K

[customFC]

I love seeing all these numbers.
I think that you need to share them all with each other to make a more complete picture.
Surely there is something to be gained by both having all the numbers collected so far, or am I speaking out of turn.
Regards
Alex

[mcl1959]

Aha, I had Stacey's car in the data base as 6 - 17235 - S which is why I new it was wrong, but with the extra number taken out it is definately right.
I found another one that I hadn't entered into the database yet
FE 225 2551 S with 200 code which is Huron Green over Ocean Mist Green - no chassis # with this entry.
So with FE 225 2053 that makes 8 cars total -
6 are either Elk or Teal over Elk, the other 2 are Gypsy over Cabot and Huron over Ocean Mist.
That makes 75 % of 1956 Sydney cars are Blue!  I think it needs more numbers to conclusively prove.

Ken

[RET]

Brett,

Even if I was up for that, I think such a graph would have some awfully skinny slices. I'm not sure it would be readable. In any case, I'm not one of the custodians of this data. However, if Ken and/or Geoff want to compile the stats, I guess I could have a go.

Stacey's car is still in the club, by the way. It's now owned by Iraj.

cheers
RET